Amid the rustling of plastic bags and squeaking of tables under the weight of hundreds of cans of cranberry sauce in the UND Armory on Friday emerged something not many people get to see in a lifetime: 700 boxes of stuffing.
This year, the UND Mortar Board honor society is holding its 27th annual Turkey Drive. The drive is aimed at providing a hearty Thanksgiving dinner for needy families around the area.
Throughout the fall, the Mortar Board has held several canned food drives, teaming up with Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, Red River High School and Sioux Crew. Red River Valley Community Action also donated much of the canned vegetables used in each of the Thanksgiving baskets.
The 700 turkeys purchased were not provided by food drives, but by money donated by businesses in the Red River Valley area. "We wrote a newsletter to pretty much everyone in the phone book," Mortar Board spokesman David Kwapinski said.
Friday afternoon, the 21 members of the Mortar Board filled grocery bags full of stuffing, canned fruit and vegetables, pumpkin pie filling and crust, and potatoes.
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When the 650 families already registered for the baskets arrive at 10 a.m. today at the UND Armory, they will pick up those bags and, of course, their turkeys.
Each family receiving a basket has registered how many people are in their family, which determines how many cans of food they receive. The average family that receives a basket has five people.
When you do the math, it means almost 3,500 people will receive Thanksgiving dinner this year that, without the Mortar Board, might not have.
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Mortar Board Inc. is a nationally recognized honor society for college seniors who display excellence in leadership and academics. UND's group currently has 21 members who passed the selection criteria, which includes grade-point average and application qualifications.
Mortar Board serves mainly as a service organization on campus, with the Turkey Drive serving as its largest project annually.
"Like any philanthropy, it started small and just exploded," said Kristi Nelson, Mortar Board adviser. "We are helping 100 more families this year than last year. That's amazing."
